


toil and trouble

by wheredwellthe_brave_atheart



Category: The Crucible - Miller
Genre: Abigail Williams takes no motherfucking prisoners, Affairs, Angst, F/M, Guilt, Witchcraft, because her Abby is boss, evoking England, this is just straight up guilty angst smut y’all, winona ryder - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:50:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart/pseuds/wheredwellthe_brave_atheart
Summary: ‘"I think I'd like to fly," she said once, staring up at the vast blue skies above his fields. They were lying hidden among the shafts of wheat, the sun pouring down and making the air around her shine like a halo.He pictured her born aloft in the sky, her beautiful hair floating around her. "Like an angel?" he asked, closing his eyes as her fingers trailed along his jaw.She laughed.’





	toil and trouble

**Author's Note:**

> I’m just saying Abigail Williams deserves a whole play focused solely on her, man what a delicious character - girl drank blood to kill John Proctor's wife she wanted him so badly and didn’t have any way to deal with it (the Puritans done fucked up) and also the guilty angst sex is something that I don’t think is explored to it’s fullest in the play, thanks very much Arthur Miller for writing such a brilliant social and political critique I’m here to supply some behind the scenes lust.

  
John didn't quite know who this child in his house was.

The way she would steal looks at him from under her bonnet, her bright eyes darting around, peaking at him from under her lashes - it was unsettling, the way the girl was always at the edges of his home.

Elizabeth had wanted a girl to help her. Elizabeth was always tired these days, always sighing and cold to his touch. Elizabeth rarely looked him in the eye any more, she was so weary.

So they had hired Abigail. Abigail Williams, niece of that insipid, sniveling Minister Parris, a girl who seemed to hold none of the man's spineless qualities, for all she walked through his home like she belonged there.

"Good ev'en, Mr. Proctor," she would murmur each time she left for her uncle's house. Her voice was strong, and sure.

He could not get her out of his mind.

…

Thunder crashed and lighting lit up the sky above his fields in blue-white streaks. John squinted through the downpour, rounding up his horses into the stable, cracking the whip and screaming through the din. Rain pelted down, pounding at his skin, soaking him to the bone.

He managed to send the last animal through the barn doors, and he followed it into the shelter.

He shook rainwater from his hat and ran his hands through his dripping hair, cursing.

A small figure stirred in the shadows. “John,” Abigail whispered, stepping into the dim light.

He froze, heart thundering as hard as the storm. He coughed, his chest heaving. “What are you doing here, girl?” he asked gruffly, but Abigail reached up and unclasped her bonnet, sending her shining hair tumbling down around her pale face.

“John,” she whispered again, stepping closer, much too close. “John,” she breathed, and her lips were inches from his, he could feel the heat coming off her body, wrapping around his senses.

He surged forward and grabbed her tight into his arms, pulling her roughly against him and crashing their mouths together. She moaned – a keening, open sound that coursed through his body. He pressed her back harshly into the wall, yanking at her long, soft hair, biting her smooth neck. She panted and arched against him, pressing her hips into his and sighing. He bit at her bottom lip until he could taste the copper of her blood. She groaned and clenched her fingers tighter around his arms, twisting beneath him. John could barely breath, he couldn’t think – he couldn’t remember his own name. All he could think about was the way Abigail’s nails scratched at his neck, raking down his shoulders, tearing at his shirt. He hissed and squeezed her tight, marvelling at the feel of her small body under his strong hands.

"Touch me,” she pleaded, lips at his ear, and he couldn’t refuse. He slipped his hand under her skirt hurriedly, gasping at the smooth expanse of her thigh above her stocking. She thrust up into his hand as his fingers found her core, so hot and wet and waiting for him John could barely stay upright. She shuddered and cried and later she bent down on her knees in the dirt of his barn, with hay in her hair and rain from his clothes soaked into her skin, and her big eyes swallowed him as she wrapped her delicate mouth around his cock, something so base and sinful John sobbed a deep cry while her tongue stroked him. Her sharp teeth flashed, her hands always grasping for more.

"John!” she cried out as dawn grew nearer, his Christian name so dangerous on her tongue, dangerous for how it made his blood sing.

There was no turning back, now.

In the morning John would walk into his home and explain how the storm had trapped him in the barn with the animals. Elizabeth would sigh and murmur a word of thanks to the Lord for his safety, at least.

Abigail would enter the house after they’d broken their fast, as usual, and assure his wife that she had arrived home safely last night, before tucking a strand of hair back into her bonnet and getting on with her chores.

John would escape to his fields, and feel as if he were in a dream.  
...

The weeks passed in a frenzied haze of Abigail - her lips on her smooth skin, the sweetest ache filled him until he could barely breathe. He would return to his house with Elizabeth fresh from Abby’s embrace, and feel a deep shame burning low in his gut. He was a man living two lives, sinning in each. A man of treachery, deception, lust, and depravity.

He had her in his marriage bed, in her maiden bed, in the woods behind the town.

He had her in his heart, his body, and his soul.

…

"I think I'd like to fly," she said once, staring up at the vast blue skies above his fields. They were lying hidden among the shafts of wheat, the sun pouring down and making the air around her shine like a halo. "I'd like to spread my arms and feel the wind support me," she brushed her hands along his skin, mimicking her words. "Feel it caress me. I'd like to fly far away."

He pictured her born aloft in the sky, her beautiful hair floating around her. "Like an angel?" he asked, closing his eyes as her fingers trailed along his jaw.

She laughed.

...

He knows he needs to end this. He knows he ought to have ended it weeks ago, or perhaps before it even began. But he is bound by his choices and weakened the longer he stays near her.

Tomorrow, he vows. Right now, he needs to feel this girl writhing beneath him, needs to see her tossing her head back and forth, needs to hear her whimpering his name like she would whisper God’s name in prayer. Right now, he can't bring himself to part with her.

...

He thought of the Fae Folk his mother would always mention in his childhood, how she would tell him tales of fairies and sprites and otherworldly creatures, tales which she had grown up with, in England.

Abigail reminded him of those creatures - beings not of this Earth.

...

One Sunday he could not find it in himself to deny Elizabeth, so their family attended Church.

He sat only a few rows behind Abigail, and as he shifted in the pew he stared as the dust motes floated around her head, mind full of hazy dreams throughout the service.

She found him afterwards, as the townspeople milled about the entrance to speak with her uncle.

“I have not seen you here often as of late,” she whispered, standing just far enough away from him. “Why are you here today, Mr. Proctor?”

He tipped the brim of his hat lower over his eyes. “To feel God’s power.”

She kept her eyes trained on a group of girls standing near her. He could barely hear her whispering through her lips, softly, softly. “God is not here. I feel God’s power only when I am with you – I feel God’s power when you are inside me, John.”

His head spun, overwhelmed by memory. He fixed his collar and made to turn away, shaking his head. “Oh, what power does God have over someone like you?"

...

Autumn had begun to set in when John came home from the fields one night to find Abigail and his sons gathered together, heads bent over the kitchen table.

He dropped his hat and sank into a nearby chair, feeling the bright burn of Abigail's gaze from across the room.

His youngest son leapt up to his lap, scrambling like a hare. "Papa, Papa, Abby taught us how to catch a chicken! She broke its neck and we're to eat it for supper!"

He felt the weight of his son in his arms as he looked into the girl's face. For an instant, something in her eyes was ferocious, and possessive, and a cold fear wrapped itself tight around his heart.

Benjamin babbled into his ear as Samuel tugged at Abigail's hand, leading her to the pot over the fire. Her expression smoothed back into a genteel smile.

John cleared his throat. "Where's your mother?" he asked gruffly, hoisting Benjamin into the air as he stood.

"Resting," the boys replied simultaneously, and Benjamin squirmed to be let down. "Mama's head ached all day," the child added, before joining his brother and Abigail at the fire.

John went to wash, but he couldn't scrub away the prickling dread which had set to crawling up his spine.

It was late when he took Abigail home, the meal having stretched over the twilight of the evening. His wife had been pale, and drawn, only appearing to ensure the boys ate heartily but refusing much food herself. John had said grace and retreated into silence for most of the night, standing only once Abigail had finished the washing up and he could no longer avoid her.

Now they trundled along the dirt path back into town, and John shivered at each brush of her arm against his as the cart swayed.

The moon was rising high. The road before them was bright and clear. “John,” she murmured, as coyotes howled in the distance. “I miss you.”

He stiffened, and pulled the reigns tighter, squaring his shoulders. “I don’t want you paying so much attention to my sons,” he said gruffly.

She froze beside him. “Why?” she asked softly, in a voice sharp with hidden steel.

"Because you are a wolf,” he said firmly, keeping his eyes ahead, “and I fear for my flock."

...

His wife knew.

John didn’t think he could ever look her in the face again.

Abigail was gone within the hour, and John felt his heart leeching, bloody and raw within his chest.

Elizabeth, bewildered, hurt, filled with righteous anger, had retreated upstairs once the timbers of the house and stopped rattling from the terrible scene, the awful screeching dismissal of Abigail and the girl’s resulting fury.

The children were playing in the fields. John sat in his quiet house and felt a malignant ghost growing.

…

Her hair was loose when she met him in the woods one night while the trials were raging. The light of his lantern shone off the strands, turning her into some fair bright thing among the cold, dark trees.

He was angry for how much he wanted her, still. He hated her and pitied her, and he hated and pitied himself, but most of all he longed for the hot press of her small body in his arms, the spark of her eyes looking up at him.

...

_I have known her!_

He says too much, and yet it is not enough to encapsulate all that passed between them.

...

When the executioner settles the noose around his neck, John tries to fill his mind of visions of Elizabeth, pure and sweet as an angel, but when the block swings it's Abby's joyful laugh which echoes proudly in his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought!


End file.
